Sunday January 17th is the 5th
anniversary of the day we landed in Bulgaria to found the ReachGlobal Sofia
City Team. On Sunday I hope to post a
blog about what made us move to Bulgaria and serve in full-time ministry. Today however, I’m going to post a prologue
giving you reasons that had nothing to do with our decision to serve in
ministry. These are the common
misconceptions of the ministry worker.
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| A picture from our home town of Sofia. |
Misconception 1: We
couldn’t cut it in the work force
Someone once asked my what lucrative career I gave up to
serve in ministry. I responded, “All of
them.” Not to toot my own horn,
but I’m of above average intelligence and physically stronger than most. I could have gone down any number of career
paths. Lawyer, restaurant owner,
teacher, water heater installer, mechanic, and countless other professions were
available to me.
And not just to me.
Sasha is one of the smartest people I know. She is fluent in four extant languages and
has a degree in an ancient dialect of Greek (she graduated with highest
honors). At the same time, she is a kind
and compassionate person. There is very
little that she would not be good at.
Yet with all the choices laid out before us, we both decided
to go into ministry where the pay is much less than most other professions.
Misconception 2: We
have some hidden agenda
I have heard it said that religious workers all have some
secret agenda to attempt to control the lives of other people. This may be true of some people engaged in
spiritual work. There are undoubtedly
people out there who use spiritual beliefs and superstitions to control the
lives of others. Yet we are not among
them.
There are people out there who promise wealth if only you
buy their magic talisman. There are
people who promise an eternity of sexual relations with young virgins if only you blow yourself up. There are
people who promise health and prosperity if only you send it $19.95 for their
magic washcloth that they blessed by praying for it. There are all kinds of scams that people come
up with by promising that the spirit world will bend to your will if only you
do the thing they want you to do.
As ministers of the gospel, we offer a message of salvation
through Jesus. This salvation is a free
gift. We do not charge for it or demand
certain behaviors. In fact, we don’t
even give the gift out. It comes from
Jesus alone. All you have to do is
accept it. We get nothing from you, and
we don’t force it upon you. If you don’t
want to accept God’s gift of salvation, you are not required to do so. No one is required to know God. Though we dearly hope that all do.
Misconception 3: We
are seeking personal gain.
There are undoubtedly many people out there who do ministry
for some sort of political purpose or to attain some sort of status. We see men and women calling themselves
“reverend” on TV all the time building their own personal brands. There are commercial pastors and ministry
directors who seek to make money off of books they write or seminars they
give. There are even low-level versions
of such creatures who may creep into your local church. You can easily spot such people because they
are more interested in what they can gain from you than in what they can invest
in you.
Of course, I could tell you that we are not such people, but
any of them would say the same thing.
They would tell you that they are just doing what they do with nothing
but good intentions. Many books,
seminars, and broadcasts are indeed done for good reasons. How are you to know that we are not such
people?
In our defense on this point I will merely point to the
evidence of our ministry. We live in the
corner of Europe in one of the poorest countries on the continent. We have no teammates, and most people have
never heard of us. If we were in this
for personal gain, then we have done a terrible job of gaining anything.
Now that you know why we are not here, the stage has been
set for us to tell you why we are here.
Check back soon to find out why.
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